The Truth about Chocolate By: Kevin Gomez

Dear Chocoholics,

 

 Did you know where the chocolate that you ate come from? 60% of the cocoa comes from Ghana and the Ivory Coast in Africa. These places use child labor for the cocoa. They take children and send them across the border. It leads them to the Ivory Coast. This is called “trafficking”. When the children arrive at the Ivory Coast, they send them to the cocoa plantations where they make them as their slaves. “There is an outrageous number of children who are suffering from horrible back pain and other ergonomic neck issues between the ages of 5 and 18 just so we can have chocolate states the article “Reverse Trick or Treating”. It is important we raise our voices against this abuse of children.

   The Fair Trade movement guarantees that farmers receive a premium of $150 on top of market prices for each ton of cocoa they produce, as long as they meet specified labor standards. If more people buy Fair Trade chocolate, more children would be free from chocolate slavery!

 I recommend you kids that when you get chocolate you would exchange it with Fair Trade chocolate during trick or treating. This is called Reverse Trick or Treating. Chocoholics please think before you act.

Power to the kids by Randy Cerda

Dear reader,

   Did you know where the chocolate that you ate came from? 60% of the cocoa comes from Ghana and the Ivory Coast in Africa. These places use child labor for the cocoa. They kidnap them and transport them across the border to the Ivory Coast. This is called “human trafficking”. When they get to the Ivory Coast they send them to the cocoa plantations where they get treated as slaves. Companies like Hershey's use the cocoa from these cocoa plantations to make the chocolate we love.

   A recommendation for you is to buy “fair trade chocolate” .The fair trade movement guarantees that farmers receive a premium of $150 on top of market prices for each ton of cocoa they produce as long as they meet specifiable labor standards. Read this poem by Frieda Dennis Cooper” Little chocolate hands lead to small chocolate faces, eyes filled with hope of more than $1 a day”. That is the sad picture of children on the cocoa farms. For example the Dominicans use Haitian people (from Haiti) cut sugar canes and they don’t get paid sufficiently to survive though they even use child labor. 72 % of the U.S sugar comes from Dominican Republic.

   What can you do to help? You should support “reverse trick or treating”,This is when you trick or treat and you exchange the chocolate you get with fair trade chocolate. 
      The public needs to know about the life of children abused on cocoa plantations. "There are an outrageous number of children who are suffering from horrible back pain and other ergonomic neck issues between the ages of 5 through 18 just so we can have chocolate”. according to the article on Reverse Trick or Treating by World Watch Institute. 

   Next time you take a bite of chocolate remember what happens to the kids who cut the cocoa beans down.

                   

                                                               

Chocolate Children Eric Bencosme 611

Dear Chocoholic,

            Children are being trafficked every single day to farmers just to produce the sweet rich chocolate we eat everyday. Children in Africa are being used as child slaves.

                       

            Children play a role in the chocolate making in companies like Hershey's. 200,000 children work on cocoa farms.75 percent of the worlds cocoa is produced by the Ivory Coast. Children are smuggled across the border. Their parents don’t even know their children are being used to produce the chocolate we consume. Some children that work their don’t even know how chocolate tastes like or know what it’s used for. These roles that children play have a huge impact (effect). Children are exposed to pesticides and fertilizers. The chemicals make the air and water dirty. People and animals who breathe the air will become sick. Children suffer wounds from the machete.According to CNN's Freedom Project videos a child named Abdul who works in a cocoa farm suffered machete marks. The children that work on these farmers have never gone to school.

            There are many courses of actions that can make a big difference. One course of action is buy fair trade chocolate. “Fair trade standards guarantee farmers get $150 on top of the market price” (Reverse Trick or Treaters by Ben Block) for not using child labor. Another course of action is reverse trick or treating. Reverse trick or treating is when adults give you candy you give fair trade chocolate back to them. In the article “Reverse Trick-or-treaters Deliver Fair Trade chocolate” it states that farmers are paid more with fair Trade, so they don’t have to live in poverty and their children can get an education. Isn’t this a great way to raise awareness?

            What will you do to stop this horrific use of children? Let’s work together and STOP CHLID LABOR!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ariana Ventura The Dark side of chocolate

Dear reader,

 Can you imagine the suffering that goes on in West Africa, Children with tears reaching down their faces and being promised about everything getting better and it just gets worse and they lose their trust but never faith.

          Child Labor is used for many things but here’s a secret that won’t remain a secret for long. The people who harvest cocoa beans use slaves and use kids from the age of 10 and up. Chocolate companies like Hershey's pretend not to know that cocoa harvesters use child labor.

              What can we do is buy fair trade chocolate. Fair trade chocolates are chocolate where no child labor is used. Exchange students from Indonesia, India, Mozambique, and Switzerland joined trick or-treaters in the suburbs or Washington to deliver fair trade chocolate.This is reverse trick or – treating.

            Frieda Denis Cooper wrote a poem Cocoa Beans and I was inspired by this one line “A world of lovers sinfully unaware and can’t taste baby’s blood mixed in”. What this means to me is that us chocolate lovers focus on the good side of chocolate and are so blinded that we don’t realize the dark side of chocolate.

Its painful to see these kids cry and some of them lose their faith and hope but if you care lets not let them lose that love, faith, and hope LET’S END CHILD LABOR!.

THE BAD STORY OF CHOCOLATE by Fabian Garcia

Dear chocolate lovers,             

Imagine working for an owner on a farm to get money for your family. The owner says you would have to crack the Coco beans shell and chop them off trees with a machete. You would think that this would be a great, but you’re wrong. After years of working for your owner, you feel tired and hurt and abused by all the work you did for your owner. Then you ask for your money for the hard work you do and your owner gives you nothing. You’re angry and sad and you want to say something, but are scared of getting even more abused by your owner. Isn’t it important for us to raise our voices for the voiceless people?

The role children play in the production of chocolate is horrifying. Its child labor, children are making chocolate for people like us to enjoy. It is very cruel, 75% of world’s cocoa is produced by Ivory Coast and West African Countries, Children have to use big knives called machetes to cut a fruit called cocoa beans that have cocoa in it. They wear dirty clothes have  machetes marks on their legs and are stolen from there owner family. The people who smuggle children to make them slaves are called trafficking. The traffickers steal children around those ages of 7 to 12. In 2006 132 children were trafficked. In 2007 140 children were trafficked and on 2008-2009 150 children were rescued. Some children are not able to escape  their master, but some are able to, like a girl named Mary. Mary was stolen from her home in Mali by a woman. Thank goodness the under cover agent against saw her and took her from the woman. Now she is safe with her family. These are some of the shocking facts exposed in the documentary “The Dark side of Chocolate’’. 

Thanks to this cruel practice wonderful children can’t get an education they always wanted, nice clothing and decent shelter. The children have to go to the farm and work for a long time and don’t get paid by their master for there hard work. Then the children have to grow up ass a sad and depressed person and next thong you know, the master of all the children continues to smuggle other children.

We have to help the voiceless people quickly. Some actions that we can all do to help them is this, give back Fair Trade chocolate on Halloween in return for candy you get, This is called Reverse Trick or Treating. These companies including Equal Exchange, Theo chocolate and Divine Chocolate sell Fair Trade chocolate. Fair Trade chocolate is when the government pays the farmers of some cocoa farms more money for not using child labor. I think these actions can really help the voiceless children a lot.

Also another action that we could do to help the the suffering children is with some Valentine’s day activities. We could give/send a letter to the Hershey’s telling them to stop using child labor for making chocolate.

  Let us help the voiceless people find their

voices!

The Dark Side of Chocolate by Angelina Aybar

The Dark Side of Chocolate

By Angelina Aybar

   Dear Reader,

      

            Did you know that child labor has been going on for years? People have done so many things to stop it, but they just keep on. That’s why I want to do something about it. These kids from West Africa harvest cocoa. They are taken away from their family and go and work cultivating cocoa. Farmers need to stop telling kids to work, so that they can go to school and stay with their family. This need to stop NOW!                 

           “ One of the concerns we’ve  seen is that some of the activities children are involved in are inappropriate to their age : carrying heavy loads, using machetes on farms,” said Bill Guyton, president of the world cocoa foundation, a developer of several industry-supported training sessions in cocoa- growing regions of Africa , southeast Asia , and the Americans. “Through farmer, we explain to parents why activities are dangerous to young people.” Everything he said is right. I don’t like how kids have to work at ages 5-12. These kids should be in school, not working. These kids get hurt working. These people need to stop making kids doing this. These kids are in danger.

 

          Some courses of action can be in the holidays like Halloween and valentines when they give out more chocolate for kids. In Halloween the kids go trick or treating. We can support reverse trick or treating because according to the article Reverse Trick or Treaters Deliver Fair Trade Chocolate by Ben Block, “the exchange students from India, Indonesia, Mozambique, and Switzerland joined trick or treaters in the suburbs of Washington DC, to deliver Fair Trade Chocolate. Dressed in masks and outfits reminiscent of the film The Matrix, a group of foreign exchange students celebrated their first Halloween in proper fashion on Saturday in the suburbs of Washington DC. But the classmates turned the US tradition on its head. In addition to accepting candy, the students handed back their own fair trade-certified, organic dark chocolate.”

       

   “Little Chocolate hands leads to small chocolate faces eyes filled with the hope of more than just $1 dollar a day.” From the poem Cocoa beans By Frieda Dennis Cooper is a reminder to all of us of the dark side of chocolate. How long will this darkness continue?

Not So Sweet Capitalism By:Mariah Edmundson

  Not so Sweet Capitalism

    By: Mariah Edmundson

Stand up; Raise your voice for the kids in the Ivory Coast. Working hard to make the chocolate we love today. Little kids are victims of Child Labor. This has been going on for many years it’s time to speak up. The Ivory Coast is very hot and humid. Kids are stuck picking and chopping cocoa beans with machetes’. Just like a predator lures it’s with a deceiving smile”. Ms.Frieda Denis Cooper the poet once said in her poem “Cocoa Beans.” According to the documentary The Dark Side of Chocolate one little girl, Mariam was tricked into going on the bus which leads to Ivory Coast. The Ivory Coast is a vulnerable place for children. At least 2 million kids are working in the Ivory Coast. This is a loathsome thing that is occurring. Don’t you want to stop this? I do! So it’s time to speak up; make your voice heard.

One course of action is to support fair trade chocolate. Exchange students form Mozambique, India, Indonesia and Switzerland joined trick or treaters in the suburbs of Washington D.C, to deliver Fair trade chocolate. Fair trade chocolate is fair trade certification which appears on a number of chocolate beans including Equal Exchange. Meaning that no child labor was involved is the making of harvesting the cocoa beans.

According to the article “Reverse trick or treaters Delivers Fair Trade chocolate” once said” There is an outrageous number if children who are suffering from horrible back pain and other ergonomic neck issues between the ages of 5 and 18 just to we can have chocolate.” Children in the Ivory Coast never go to school or see their families. They don’t even make money. These child slaves are stranded on the Ivory Coast working without a choice. When children are done working they don’t go home. They have more work to do, child slaves are extremely tired.

If you feel like you need to speak up here are some activities. Create your own personalized Valentines day Valentine telling Hershey to use fair Trade cocoa for its products, like the iconic chocolate Kiss. Address your valentine to Hershey Trust at 100 Crystal A Drive, Hershey, PA 17033 Valentine's Day is a major chocolate buying holiday, but gifts for your sweetheart should not come at the expense of worker rights! Forced labor, child labor and trafficking continue in the cocoa industry in West Africa. Global Exchange is company trying to end the child labor in the cocoa industry.

If you decide to change at least 2 million kids lives’ considered yourself a hero. Just by raising awareness you can change kids’ lives in the Ivory Coast. Just by telling one person you can change a lot but if you want to end completely you have to tell everyone you know. Your opinion matters and it’s best that it is heard. Stand up; let your voice be heard. Promise guaranteed you will not have one single regret.